First of all, thanks so much to beama and auggy1984 who've been regular reviewers of this little ficlet. I'm really sorry I'm such a terrible updater but hey! School's out for 2 months and maybe NOW I can actually concentrate on this thing! Thanks for all your support!
At times Hana wished that she could draw. Like right now. She looked down at her pathetic attempt at creating a portrait of Ephram on top of her open textbook and sighed. Nothing she could do would be able to capture the intensity of his eyes. Nothing. In fact, her pencil sketch looked like such a terrible rendition of him she had half a mind to start tearing it up into shreds like a rabid dog.
"Hana?" Mr Peters' voice suddenly broke through her thoughts.
"Yes?" Hana spoke up, and her classmates broke into laughter. Hana felt her face growing warm. He must've been asking her a question. Mr Peters sighed and gave her a disappointed look. At this, Hana cringed inwardly and faced her desk. She couldn't bear his look. Why couldn't he just berate her like he did the others?
"See me after class," she heard him say, an ominous tone to his voice. Hana sensed the stir in the atmosphere as her classmates turned their heads around to look at her. Whoa. Hana? In trouble? That was a first. Hana lifted her head from her embarrassment and caught Ephram looking at her. He smiled empathically. She turned away from him.
Damn you, it's all because of you.
Hana trudged down the school steps looking for all the world like someone had died. Mr Peters' lecture had been awful. She knew that he cared the most about his students among all her teachers, but damn, he could really make a person feel like schmuck.
"Hana, obviously you don't care about my or any of your other teachers' lessons," Mr Peters had started off, his eyes like daggers shooting straight into hers. What the heck was she supposed to reply to that? But then again, Hana didn't really think he had been expecting one.
"Your grades are dropping miserably. I don't know what's gotten into you lately. You're constantly daydreaming, handing in your work late...you are completely slacking off. To tell you the truth, you've been one of the most promising students we have here. But now...," he broke off as Hana forced her breathing to remain calm. "I really expected more from you than this."
Okay, enough with the guilt trip already!!!
Hana couldn't believe she'd had to sit through almost an hour of that. Boy, now she finally knew what it was like to be in a teacher's bad book. She'd never understood how any of her schoolmates could dislike a teacher till now.
"Aye, Hana. Why the long face?" a familiar voice said. Thank god for Emily. She had suddenly appeared at the bottom of the steps, puffing out smoke like a power station as usual.
"Nothing...academic problems," Hana replied in a dead voice.
Emily snorted with laughter. "What...that's all? Geez...for a moment there I thought something serious had happened!"
Hana shot a glare at her. "An academic problem is serious", she replied. Emily lifted her hands in surrender.
"Alright, alright...no need to throw your anger at me". Emily laughed again. When that didn't elicit a response from Hana, she sighed helplessly. "You know what?" she started, an idea forming in her head. "You look like you could do with a smoke".
Hana wrinkled her nose in disgust. "That's disgusting".
"Hey..." Emily sounded half-offended. "How would you know it's disgusting if you haven't tried it? It's...what's that word...therapatic?"
"Therapeutic," Hana corrected her.
"Yeah that's it. Come on, just one puff won't hurt," Emily cajoled. She held out the cigarette she'd been smoking to Hana.
"Alright...maybe just one puff," Hana agreed slowly. What can it hurt? She moved her hand slowly towards the offering in Emily's hand.
"Then again," Emily suddenly said, pulling her hand back just as Hana was about to touch the cigarette. She looked around. "Maybe we should be more discreet about this, eh?" She nodded her head towards the back of the school building and walked towards it.
Hana followed behind her.